Overexposed
by KirishimaAyama
Summary: Overexposure to that bright, welcoming flame that is Tsunayoshi Sawada... may be the one thing that is Mukuro's undoing. An image branded does not fade. - TYL Spoilers and Character Death


**Overexposed**  
(A Katekyo Hitman Reborn! 6927 Fanfiction)  
First published late June, 2010.  
Written for SMASH! (Sydney Manga and Anime Show) Fanfiction Competition (ineligible for any prizes as I am a volunteer) 2010.

* * *

He had never felt so warm, wrapped in Tsunayoshi's embrace.

He was born into a world of blood, but it was not by choice. At least, none he could remember. All of his lives, he still ended up walking this path of violence, death, destruction. One after the other, unrelenting, torturing him with its endless grip, pulling him into the depths of where he had been for far too many times.

Fate had taken a hand and dealt him this dark road once again, until he had finally grabbed it and flung it back into the abyss where it truly belonged. Fate be damned, he would walk his own road.

What is life? What is death?

Yet he ended up walking this dark and bloody road once again.

How? Why?

But he knew he could not stop.

There were things that he had to do. There was a person now, so important to him and constantly in such great danger, he did not want to lose. He could not afford to lose. He could not bear to lose.

This was the perhaps the only thing that tied him to this world with such clarity.

All his life he'd treated people like toys. Things he merely used to his own advantage, to gain power and control without anyone the wiser because he was a master of deception, of lies and trickery, of illusions.

Once burned, twice shy?

Somewhere along the line perhaps he had started to care. People change, inevitably. He was no different, even if he liked to pretend – and he was good at it – that he did not care, that he was only single-mindedly focused on his goal to rid the world of the garbage that is humanity and cause mass destruction. Ken and Chikusa. As much as they served him as vessels and were once only considered mere tools, he still thought of them as, perhaps, his friends. Enough to sacrifice himself for them anyway. Their safety meant something to him, but perhaps it was once again, merely to his own personal gain.

What was he really, to them?

As for the girl, Chrome, well he didn't really know why he had saved her, but her abandonment to her fate, her inability to fight this inevitability, it had attracted him. It had helped that she had the innate potential hidden deep within her, so she was perfect as being a means of his 'getting out' – so to speak – of where he had been imprisoned.

Just a tool?

Well, that was in the past now. Some things were better left alone. Reasons, questions, perhaps there were once answers, but not everything remained so clearly cut. Besides, what use was there to dwell on trivial matters?

Were these merely excuses?

Somewhere along that line, trapped in that lonesome place, drifting in the numbing water, unable to move, speak, alone with only his thoughts for company when he had exhausted himself, there was only one person that came to mind. The person he had been defeated by and intrigued him with the strange mixture of weakness and power. The person who was his new obsession.

Sawada Tsunayoshi.

When had that obsession with possessing him morphed into this emotion he did not recognise? He had spent his time in the watery prison thinking up tactics to get closer to the young Vongola boss. It was ironic he now possessed and was close to Tsunayoshi in a different way that he had intended.

He had spent too long in that suffocating darkness.

Like a moth attracted to light, he had fluttered too close to that bright flame. But even though it was dangerous, this light was warm, welcoming. He was not burned to death like the proverbial moth to flame, but instead, somehow basked in its healing warmth, protected.

Is it … alright to remain like this?

His long trailing ponytail now whipped in the slow breeze, strands blowing in every direction, wild and with a mind of its own. It drifted across the face of the Vongola boss as he pressed his face into the comforting texture of Mukuro's starched collar.

Confidante. Mukuro could control the mafia in different ways…

Mukuro smiled slightly and began to stretch his arms around Tsunayoshi, securing himself to him, to possibly that only connection to the rest of humanity, to a world of light. A shocking tenderness filled him, most curiously, but it wasn't unwelcome. Just unusual.

Was he going insane?

But then the light was gone, wrenched away by that single carefully aimed bullet to where nobody, not even he, could reach. For all his power, all he could create was an illusion. And that didn't stick if you didn't believe in it.

He wanted to very much.

As for his walking amongst dreams. Well, he had enough of his own and what use was that to him. There was no guiding light along that dark path anymore. His light had been extinguished forever; leaving him on the dark and lonely road, so astray from where he once was he no longer knew the way. Lost and alone – the crushing darkness still stalked the perimeters of his mind. Yet the sun still shone brightly, mockingly; birds chirped and flittered about cheerfully; clouds floated across the sky. Nothing changed around him. It was as if nothing had happened.

Time moved forward as usual.

It was leaving him behind, trapped, without a purpose to his existence. What was the use of living? Hour by hour. Day by day. Time passed so slowly, at a crawl. Mocking him once again, his one chance at any form of happiness gone in a flash. Perhaps he had been taking it for granted.

What is life? What is death?

The grotesque creatures that once crawled along the edges of the path he walked were contained no longer and descended without mercy. He was not afraid of them. He was not afraid of anything. The worst had happened, what was there to fear about anymore?

He raised the gun to his head.

The world seemed colourless, without meaning. Drifting without purpose, he spent each day in the misery of his thoughts, alone, alone with only his thoughts for company, just like in that prison cell. There was nothing else. He needed nothing else.

He wanted nothing else now.

The finger rested on the trigger, ready.

He hadn't ever felt this way before. Why now? Why this person? Why had had he been so intrigued by this young Vongola boss when he had vowed to never form such an allegiance with the mafia ever again? Indeed, what had possessed him when he had accepted his role?

There were too many questions.

More questions than answers. More darkness than light. More death than life.

I will become a servant of evil for you.

The dark, silent vow; accepting a place for himself, and who better than the one who had walked the many paths to Samsara? Murder was his specialty. Perhaps he was not able to choose where his path started, and perhaps he had in fact contributed to where it had descended, it was either embrace who he was or be a test subject forever, confined to just another dark prison cell, no freedom, no life.

But he had been given a choice.

He had made it, chosen his freedom over a life of slavery. And somehow that had led to here, to his choice to work for a man he knew was above all fair, above all worried about others, and above all, believed in the power of justice even when Mukuro's own darkness and chaotic world was at such odds with such an honestly burning flame.

Perhaps… he could have some faith in the power of goodness.

He had no doubt the other Guardians were happy to commit anything – including murder – for Tsunayoshi, but it was Mukuro who was truly the one of the shadows. Hibari Kyoya was perhaps the strongest and known for his odd bloodthirstiness, but no one would fault Rokudo Mukuro as the most cunning, deceptive. He did much of the spy work because of his unique powers, trust – possibly misguided – placed in him to inform them of other Mafioso's treachery.

"I can only stay out here for a short time. I don't mind."

"Then I want you to be the Guardian of the Mist, Rokudo Mukuro."

What was a guardian without anyone to guard? Indeed, what was a flower without sun, or a fish without water from which it drew its very life source? He had become too reliant.

The finger tightened fractionally on the trigger.

When had he lost the will to make a destruction of this world, which he had seen as so vile? When had he started accepting that light, that warmth, weakening? Where had his direction been, where had it gone? When had he strayed so far from that path that he had drawn from before?

The path that had changed once he had crossed the path of one other.

He had no wish to remain in this world. Even as mighty as his will was, to be able to force others' bodies into accepting his possession wholly, it was gone now, drained as if it were never there. Or at least it had gone somewhere he could not find.

He closed his eyes, drew his finger back and shot.

There was no moon, no stars… no sun, no light…

Just darkness…

.

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.End

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* * *

"I can only stay out here for a short time. I don't mind."

"Then I want you to be the Guardian of the Mist, Rokudo Mukuro."  
Quote borrowed from Reborn manga Vol 13, Page 190.

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Written by KirishimaAyama

Reborn! belongs to Akira Amano


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